Red dot, accuracy

Assuming you have an accurate gun how much improvement could you see with a good aimpoint or ultra? Say you could shoot 5 round 2.5 inch groups off a rest at 50 yards with irons.

Also, is magnification against the rules in bullseye? Otherwise I would expect to be seeing 1911 with 2-7x scopes at the match pictures.

Thanks!
Wayne Van De Graaff

If you can shoot 2.5" groups off a rest with iron sights you will probably not do any better with a dot. Dot's are for those of us that can't shoot 2.5 with iron sights (National record set with iron sights). Old eyes suck. Magnification is perfectly legal in Bullseye it just won't help your scores. Hard to pull the trigger when you see all the wobble.

LenV wrote:If you can shoot 2.5" groups off a rest with iron sights you will probably not do any better with a dot. Dot's are for those of us that can't shoot 2.5 with iron sights (National record set with iron sights). Old eyes suck. Magnification is perfectly legal in Bullseye it just won't help your scores. Hard to pull the trigger when you see all the wobble.

I agree, I have red dots on all of my .22 target pistols simply because of my old eyes.

Thanks guy sounds like I should just stick with my iron sights until my eyes start to go.

I test fired someone’s S&W Model 41 once at my local range while a pistol scope was mounted to it. It was neat to see the crosshairs and was a fun toy to play with but when using magnification, all the little tremors and the wobble is magnified as well. Like mentioned above you find yourself taking for ever to break the shot because you second guess it or you try to hold still enough to make the shot a good one and you end up holding too long. The shakes get worse the longer you hold and the shot is executed poorly. 

Learning to shoot with iron sights helps learn and iron out the relationship between trigger control and sight alignment. For me a dot was hard to use in the beginnning because I wasn’t used to it. Now I love it. I’m 29 years old with no eye sight problems. I use a dot because I feel I have an advantage with it compared to iron sights. Almost feels like less to focus on or faster to recognize and process mentally. I’m not sure. But I shoot a little better with a dot than I do irons. And I still shoot irons very Well. I enjoy both. My 22 and 45 2700 guns have dot sights.

I never knew how accurate my revolver or I was until I mounted a dot.  I felt like I was cheating and don't think I would ever be proud of any win if I looked down the line and saw dudes with irons. I don't use a dot on my BE pistol but on my 686, I went from 3-4 inch groups at twenty-five yards, rested on bags, to seven-eight's inch groups.  Whole different world for me.  So dramatic were the results that I am now going to equip a hunting revolver with a dot and go after whitetail next winter.  I had always thought, prior to this discovery, that it would not be good sportsmanship to hunt with a revolver given my level of skill with the weapon.  Just my experience.

As I have posted quite often I feel that the Red dot is a better choice for new shooters than trying to master iron. After learning the fundamentals using the Red dot the use of iron becomes easier to master. Problem with iron is it's not easy to see errors. As I have mentioned before my son Adam started shooting with Red Dot and was shooting in the 2600's before going to the AMU. The following year now in the AMU and being the new shooter on the Service pistol team he won Service Pistol (EIC) with Iron Sights, also was the high shooter on the team allowing the Army to win the match after a long time not doing so. I had a similar experience, Iron was the only thing being shot when I stared though few were experimenting with scopes. When Perry was won with pistols that had red Dots installed everyone started using them as well as me. My scores quickly improved simply because the Red Dot was a good training aide. Then shooting Iron I quickly acquired enough points to get Distinguished.
 Simply put the Red Dot is not a better sight but a great training aide plus it's easier to use. I doubt very much if you will see a winner in the NRA Match at Perry that did it with Iron plus find many shooting the match using Iron. Furthermore those shooters that are winning the Presidents 100 and Service Pistol matches with the required Iron sights are all using Red Dots in the NRA 2700 portion of the Perry matches. Yes another advantage it extends the shooting for us older guys.
 I recommend new shooters to start with Red Dots the training aide will improve shooting skill faster than iron and when using iron the skills learned will carry over. Furthermore Adam now being the Coach of the AMU Pistol group also recommends starting with Red Dots and now new shooters with the AMU are issued Red Dot sighted guns.